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I think beat-'em-ups are getting a bit boring nowadays. There have been so many in the last few months that it's time for some other game format to take over. So what's Final Fight? It's a beat-'em-up. Oh dear. It's not a very good beat-'em-up either, You play Haggar, whose daughter has been kidnapped by ruffians. You've got to get her back. Cue violence.

You set off scrolling slowly along a street when two bad guys appear. You punch, kick and headlock them until they die. Some more walk on and you smack them in as well. This continues until you've wasted about ten dudes. Then you scroll a little bit further along the level, and start doing all the jumping and booting once again.

All you need to do is keep high kicking repeatedly and the enemy can't get near you. Using this method I finished the game in the first sitting without even trying very hard.

So basically what we've got here is a bit of a non-game. Oh, sure, some of the baddies are tougher than others, but because you can't be hit as long as you keep kicking, it's just a matter of waiting for them to die.

Other weapons are available, both to you and your assailants. You can find them lying around on the floor, or behind dustbins and stuff. But if you ignore them and just keep kicking you'll stil win.

The graphics aren't much cop either. The game is not very quick and the blows don't actually hit their targets, making the action look depressing.

Worse, there are six levels of this boringness, and backgrounds apart, they're all exactly the same. You have to fight the same characters time after time. Then, if you can be bothered to keep batting the fire button to kick, you eventually reach the big bad boss. Avoid his bullets, do a few high-kicks and he's dead.

Final Fight doesn't have anything to recommend it really. The graphics are dire, there's no gameplay and it drags on and on, wasting hours of your young life. Pity, because it was quite good as an arcade coin-op.

1. Stunning lack of gameplay.

1. Sprites are pretty large and backgrounds are often neat.